History Tends to Repeat Itself
by TheTGroup
Summary: Ever wondered what lies behind those eyes of Captain Jack Harkness - come and read his diary.
1. Childhood

"_Who are you?"  
"Captain Jack Harkness" _

Well that's the thing, I don't know who I am, not exactly. It's been too long and if I did, something's are best kept out of the picture. The real Jack Harkness was a young and very /hot/ American Volunteer Group Captain serving in the Famous 133 Eagle Squadron. He died during a routine training excise, where he and his men, were took by surprise by two formations of Messerschmitt. His plane had caught fire and got brought down; his men heard his screams over the radio and couldn't do anything for him. His body went missing, failing to report for duty the next day (January First), presumed dead – no records. I took them, along with his identity. I start by introducing this man because, even though he doesn't know it, from the moment I took his name, he changed my life and I just hope wherever he is, I do him proud.

Real Jack Harkness - 1941, Kiss The Boys Goodbye - day before he died.

Raise your glasses  
Toast: Captain Jack Harkness  
Killed in Action: 21st January 1941.

* * *

Let me re-wind or fast-forward, however you look at it, to the fifty first century, where it all started. I was born and raised from a place called Boeshane Peninsula, one of Earth's colony worlds. It was a total different place growing up, but for me it's what I call home and never knew anything else. I always say the twenty first century is when everything changes; I said the same thing about the twentieth and again in the nineteenth, but it's not until the fifty first people start living a little. I grew up in an environment where sex wasn't an issue, any gender, any species. Mankind finally found their feet, expanding towards the skies and taking a giant leap towards the stars, space, the universe and time travel. So many species, so little time, answer me this, what else are you expected to do? Neil Armstrong eat your heart out, actually don't, too hidden myth with Mary, always got a little worried when Greeks start Bearing Gifts.

Boeshane Peninsula was a sandy area, beaches that stretch for miles and blue sea as far as the horizon, it was a truly beautiful place, a real breath of fresh air and a pleasure to be part of, but it could turn incredibly boring in a blink of an eye. I was the adventurous type, something never changes, but the mischief and pulling pranks that I was well known for in the area didn't always go according to plan. I could be very persuading at times, get what I want if you know what I mean. It was a small community, just a few hundred of us, most often then not I would be found playing catch or cricket with my brother Gray down on one of the beaches. My Dad would join in when he had time and we would often play, way into the night. When the evening came, it was straight back home to watch the sun set around a campfire with Mum and sing a song or two. Mum and Dad were good people, and my brother didn't always hate me. You might think to yourself, if it was such an awesome place then why don't I talk about it more? Why should I? I don't like talking about my past, never have, never will, because yes, some of the things I've done, I'm ashamed to admit, but we have all made mistakes. I have only decided to write this because I'm –god forbid me to say- getting old and I want to get things down on paper just in case my memory fails. These are my memories, not yours and not all of them, were this good either, as you'll find out.

From an early age, as far back as I can remember the people of the Peninsula, including my family were always living in fear of war and invasion from The Worst Creatures Imaginable. Yes capital letters, my alias for them. Take your deepest fear, your worst nightmare and your arch enemy all rolled into one and triple it. Now I might be over exaggerating that, just the tiniest bit, considering the things I've been up against since then, but I was only a small boy, when they attacked remember? They were like the monster at the bottom of my bed and you never know when they would strike. It was kinda similar to 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf' towards the end and we all know what happens to the boy when eventually The Big Bad Wolf comes, nobody listens, right? Well, we had gotten fed up of the calls, the constant threats lingering, always getting ready for battle when we got the word too and nothing come off it. So one day, we ignore them and they hit. They hit us hard, we hadn't been ready, I wouldn't want anyone to go through, what I went through that day.

My Dad told me to take Gray and run, while he went and fight. What did I do? Act stubborn, loose precious time by protesting that I wanted to go with Dad too. We had been trained for this day, I wasn't going to sit back and do nothing, but my Dad wouldn't have any of it, so in the end I gave in… took Gray's hand… and ran… I ran for my life, I ran for my brother's life, just ran, so fast, never looking back, daring not to look. I dug in scared, burrowed myself into a base of a tree and waited for the creatures to past over. I thought my brother was behind me. It could have been minutes or hours but to me, it felt like internality, before the creatures left. I ran all the way back home, through a blood bath of bodies, with no sign of Gray. Deep down, I was hoping he'd find his way back eventually. At the foot of our home, I found my Dad, covered in blood, lying still on the floor, my Mum - devastated. Do I blame myself? Of cause I blame myself, not for the creatures hitting, for what happened to Gray. I had been responsible for my brother that day, I should have done more and I let go of his hand. This was the day my idyllic teen childhood got shattered to peaces and as remained and always will remain The Worse Day of my Life. Now do you understand why I don't talk about it?

They started to recruit more people to join up to fight against 'The Worse Creatures Imaginable', fearing another attack - so me being me, I persuaded my best friend to join up with me, for a bit of an adventure and I got more then I bargained for. I went to war shortly after that with my friend and we both got caught crossing enemy boarder lines which resulted in, my best friend getting tortured and killed right before my eyes because he was weaker then me. They let me go, just like that. It was horrible.

Things became clearer in my head after that, I had to find Gray, no - I needed to find Gray, hoping he would be alive when I got there. Wherever there was. My brother's disappearance was a turning point in my life, everything I did in the next few years was spent looking for him, believe it or not. I became the first one ever to receive a Vortex Manipulator from the Time Agency to widen my search for him. Besides, becoming a Time Agent was a must do at the time, I just had to try it. I became a poster boy for them later. Just imagine the words /mine is bigger then yours/ the thumbs up and wink, wink, you can trust me on this, sort of thing going on. (Sorry Pete Tyler!) This advertising automatically prompted me to enter the Rear of the Year and 5094 was my year. Face of Boe, is what people called me, they were all so proud.


	2. Time Agency, John Hart and Con Artist

So The Time Agency, it didn't live up to its expectations as people first thought it would. Lot of feud behind it and it was standing on unsteady grounds. Quite a bit happened behind the scenes they didn't let on about, which ten out of ten we needed to know. They sent us on all sorts of mission all over time, some dangerous some not so dangerous. You had to deliver the goods in the end or else you never got your bounty or what you were entitled too. You needed to work up the ranks, be top dog or they would just cross you off. I know that now, looking back on it all, but I was young, didn't listen and just went my own way. Actually nothing as really changed in that department. I still look good, a little more experienced, only a grey hair that bugs me! I don't really listen, I'd pay attention if I thought it was worth the time. Go in places guns blazing – not waving my way, or no way so take the high way - as the saying goes.

Sometimes you worked in pairs and the Agency always had a habit – a good habit at that – at pairing yours truly with a certain John Hart, or John Hart with yours truly – me. We had been good partners in every way you can think of so that meant good for business, oh yes, need I say more? If I have to be honest with myself and that is the only person I am honest with, John was my type of guy. He wasn't afraid to flirt (a lot!) or say what he thought. We were both from the fifty first century, we had similar views (at the time) and generally an awful lot in common – back then, which I liked.

We started to do a lot more together, mixing both business with pleasure. In fact, it's safe to say we went out of control. Great sex, drink more then your average, more sex, con someone, celebrate after with the winning, get stuck in a Time Loop! Ah, I'm glad we've come to that. We spent what we thought was five year in a Time Loop, which turned out to be just only two weeks. It was the longest two weeks of my life and for the record John made a fantastic, fantastic, fantastic wife.

Meeting Captain John Hart was a bonus that leads to lust, that lead to disaster, because I had met my match. I put trust into John that I never have dared to, with anyone else before or after. I told him what I was looking to achieve with finding my brother Gray. He told me he would help and he did for a while, but he was committed into an alcohol rehab and I didn't hang around much after that for him to finish the therapy. Oh and I'm so glad I didn't, he went onto a further rehab for sex, drugs and murder! We made quite a team to begin with, but we just drifted apart, we never stayed in touch, but one thing is for sure, he didn't stop trying to find my brother, he got his hands on Gray first.

My patients was wearing very thin with the Agency by now, they weren't feeding me mission as they used to and I found out they took two year of my memory. Two years! Ridiculous! I could have done anything and when I say anything, I mean anything! I left the Agency short after, if not immediately after I found out about the two years and became a rouge Time Agent, a Time Traveller con artist! Too that day till this I never found out what I did in those missing years. I can think about it, but nothing comes back to me. I hope one day I will find out.

Not giving up searching, but putting my primarily motives to the side for a while, I started to have a lot more fun along the way. I got my hands on a beautiful Chula Warship from a very gorgeous lady, I can't remember her name now. I took the ship out on a test drive and like I told her I be back in five minutes – heck, what she didn't know was that she'd be waiting for a very long time.

During my late twenties and early thirties, I made numerous short trips back and fourth through time and space, most to World War II or Pompey. For a self-cleaning con man, those two times era's were brilliant for the way I dealt with things. Don't forget to set your alarm clock for Volcano day. I picked up almost every good, bad and the ugly habits and tricks in the trade as I went along, becoming a confident con man and even though I say so myself, I was rather good at it.

My con being – find some harmless, useless pieces of space junk, which I would catapult through time and space. At this time I was still fuming with The Time Agency so I targeted people working for them, or who I thought was working for them. I let the nearest Time Agent track the junk back to Earth to some turbulent time period – hence World War II and Pompey. Once it had got some travellers' attention, I would tell them that it was valuable rare warship and offer to sell them the location. I convince them it's valuable, let them name the right price. When they've put at least fifty percent up front, I would always make sure that the unlucky punter turned up to late, so that the junk would be destroyed forever buried beneath volcanic ash or blown up by Nazi bombs. So basically I was performing various scams using my knowledge of future or past events, such as demanding money for items that I knew would be destroyed before the buyer could see it. Finding pieces of space junk and directing them to soon-to-be disaster sites, I would sell them to passersby, then allow the items to get destroyed before the buyers could pick up their merchandise. The punter never got to see what they paid for, never know they've been had. I would then buy them a drink, with their own money and discuss dumb luck. The perfect self-cleaning con! After I would pocket the rest of the money and leave them behind and strike it of as another successful days work.

I told you before; I did things I'm far from proud off.


	3. Meeting Rose Tyler

By this time I was using the name Captain Jack Harkness freely as if it was my own. Captain as a title on my half, it kinda has a catchy ring to it don't you think? Well I think so. The real Jack Harkness was a Group Captain and only commanded a Squadron, meaning, if you know the ranks, Group Captains, have never been addressed or referred to as a Captain. I think I should tell you a bit more about this man, I feel like I owe it to him and while I have his name, it'll live on. He died in a training exercise that quickly and surprisingly turned into an air combat protecting Cardiff from a bombing raid. I never met the man in person until later in my life. No luck finding his records, the only thing on paper for him is that he _'went missing'_ in 1941.

Going back to the beginning of my thoughts, it is an honour to have the name now but during this period I'm talking about, it was merely convenient. That's how I saw it. It wasn't long after I took his name on January the 21st 1941 I was out looking for a punter and decided to use the time era again, but in London, where the German Bombing Campaign was at it's highest, the middle on the Blitz. I must say I didn't just like this particular era as a whole, I loved it! Pretty girls, handsome boys, the uniforms, the big bands and dancing, oh my, stick me there anytime.

Anyway, a similar con to the ones I describes earlier, drew attention to a traveller or travellers I thought were Time Agents but turned out to be a couple of freelancers -The Doctor in his ninth regeneration and his companion at the time Rose Tyler. I was doing the usual routine, but on this occasion, I was catapulting a Chula Ambulance through time and space, which The TARDIS picked up because it was Mauve.

Mauve is the universal colour for danger by the way.

The ambulance – a vehicle invented by the Chula race to heal Chula warriors on the battlefield, I personally checked in person that it was harmless. My warship was made by the same race and like all Chula vehicles they come well equip with all sorts of handy features. Integrated tracker beams matrix, teleport matrix, omcom antennae, main and secondary cannons, cloaking mandibles, nanogenes and much much more. My ship was special, I had customised some features for human use and make my ride comfortable, but the basic technology was Chula and it was armed to the teeth and dangerous, unlike the ambulance.

Know whoever is reading this at the moment, whether in the past, present or far future may think, _'what the hell is he talking about?'_ am I right? So I'll explain a bit more about these features before I go on. You see I'm just a boy who loves his toys.

**Integrated Tracker Beam Matrix: **Now these things are just brilliant. Several things you can do with this, it's a useful bit of tech. Can hold someone prisoner, transfer people and cargo to the ship, catch people and thing in mid air, the list could go on. I had a portal prison cell made from the beam itself once.

**Teleport Matrix: **Does exactly what is says on the tin, it's a teleport and the main way in and out of the ship if parked high in the air.

**Omcom Antennae: **It allows me to call any equipment with a speaker-grille

**Main and Secondary Canons: **Ships weapons

**Cloaking Mandibles: **Scans the environment and also turns the ship invisible. Always park somewhere you remember, first rule of active camouflage.

**Nanogenes:** For one, these things are microscopic robots that can repair living tissue in a matter of seconds, as long as they recognized the target species. The nanogenes on my ship knew how to fix layers of scratched skin or damaged human bodies such as wounds because they had been around me.

Getting back to the ambulance, I thought it was empty as I said before I checked and I knew it was a worthless piece of junk, so I crashed it where I knew German bombs were going to fall. Then I had to wait a whole month for these so called _'Time Agents'_ to show up. In that time, the burnt out Chula medical transporter became under heavy guarding by the British Army, tarpaulin and fence went around it over night. They thought it was some sort of new bomb from Hitler and with a month to spare I met a gorgeous officer – Algy, his name was. Oooh this was a very secret affair but that was just more of a turn on! I got to know him quite well since I was in town. Let's just say when an air raid took place and everyone went swaning of to the shelters and he was supposed to be on guard duty, we would stay behind and play instead. My nickname for him was Tiger and he had a very excellent bottom!

In that month some very strange thing happened but I always kept an eye out for the freelancers, but at the time I thought the Time Agency would send one of their employees – I had just the plan for them when they turned up. Until one night, in the middle of German raid I spotted something rather strange. A blonde lady hanging from a barrage balloon, in a union jack t-shirt! With another excellent bottom from where I was standing, zooming in using a pair of the futuristic binoculars I had in my possession. So I told Algy I had to meet a girl and went to check the scene out.

I managed to save the pretty blonde from mid-fall with a little help from the integrated tracker beam she landed straight in my arms, which is better then the pavement right? I know how that feels! She passed out, so I waited a few minutes for her to come around and eventually she told me her name Rose Tyler before we exchanged some thoughts about one another via physic paper. However she wasn't fooled over who I said I was, mainly because I handed her the paper telling her I was _'single'_ and I _'work-out'_ and apparently she had a friend who uses the physic paper all the time. She told me not to let me mind wonder when handing it over, but in return she handed it over telling me she was _'available'_ and the word she used was _'very'_.

The conversation lead to us getting along pretty well without the physic paper as you can imagine. I found Rose very attractive from the moment I laid eyes on her and there was clearly chemistry from the start! She had a wide personality about her and I liked that. I'm glad we met and became good friends, even if it wasn't a very good first opinion/impression of me and they count! I've changed since then, I like to think I've become a better person as well as a man and just hoped that, that opinion you thought of me changed and I think it did as I proved myself worthy, over the time we travelled together. We had a laugh and a joke, played The Doctor up in TARDIS on occasions and those adventures we went on - for me, were good days that I hope I never forget. Hence while I'm writing all this down, trying not to miss anything out. She will always hold a special place in my heart.

We danced to 'our song' Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller as I told Rose I had something the Time Agency would be interested in and I knew where it was because I parked it. I twisted the truth just a little and told her that it was a rare fully equipped Chula Warship and the last one in existence. If the Agency named the right price I could get it for them but two hours was the deadline because a bomb would fall and nothing would be left apart from dust and crater. I wanted to discuss payment then I find out she wasn't travelling alone and that she was with an _him_! My first thought was _'just how disappointed should I be?'_ and my second thought if I remembered correctly was, _'was Rose authorised to negotiate with me and pay me what I wanted'._

If it makes me sound any better, my plan wasn't all about the money! I targeted the Agency because of what they did to me by taking those two years away. Revenge is what I wanted.

Quickly as possible I put forward maybe that we should go and find her partner in crime so that we could negotiate some sort of agreement before the two hours was up. I wanted to get away as soon as possible. It wasn't going to happen this time round was it? But not everything ended in tears either.


	4. Meeting 'Mr Spock' aka The Doctor

What I failed to mention was, that this Chula Warship was in fact a medical transporter and of course what are you going to find in a Chula ambulance – nanogenes, the perfect cell robots for repairing wounds! This ambulance was filled to the brim with them, which had never seen or repaired a human before. So on the night it crashed a month ago it must have got damaged somehow at the impact and these nanogenes leaked out. When they saw a child with some server injuries wearing a gas mask, scared and asking for his mummy they thought that was the default form. So they set about, using the child as a template changing all humans to match the attributes of this child. I believe his name was Jamie. He went out following his sister, who turned out to be his mother, Nancy to find food when I crashed the vehicle and was the first victim to fall to the nanogenes and one touch could pass the identical injuries on. That must have slipped my mind – whoops!

Of cause it didn't! Because I didn't know what was going on, only that something strange was happening the moment I crashed that thing! It never occurred to me that the ambulance had something to do with it. I wouldn't have let it get this far in the first place if I had have known.

Rose and I – we are on first name basis now, introduced me to The Doctor as Mr. Spock, clever Rose, real clever! Got one over me! We found him, after doing a scan for alien tech at the Albion Hospital, where all these Gas Mask Zombie's were being kept safe and looked after by a Doctor Constantine, who later turned into an empty child himself, all because of me! Do you have any idea how that felt? I don't think you do, unless you've been in a situation similar to this. As I scanned one or two beings in the hospital, noticing they have the same injuries, it was impossible and rightfully so, I really starting to panic and didn't know what to do. Would you? Rose was telling The Doctor everything about what I told her earlier and this whole plan felt like it was backfiring for once on me, because I hadn't set my alarm for volcano day!

Up until The Doctor started to ask questions, everything was going a-ok for me. I insisted that the empty children had nothing to do with me or what I dropped on the crash site. I even programmed the flight computer so it wouldn't land on anything living; I continued to insist that I hurt nobody. The Doctor insisted that everything that was happening started when the piece of junk landed, exactly where I had parked it. I showed The Doctor a hologram image, using my Vortex Manipulator of what they chased through the vortex. By this point I was desperate and had no choice to confess that the whole thing was bait which I threw at them, to kid them into believing it was valuable, when I noticed their time travel vehicle. Nice panels, I still love The TARDIS's retro look!

So that was it! They knew I was a con artist, they weren't even Time Agents and I had, in whole run, been totally screwed! Getting a hint of disapproval, I had a right telling of from Mr. Spock. These empty children – the gas mask zombies started getting restless, but managed to be kept temporally under control by The Doctor sending them to their rooms! Like that's going to work! It ended up with all three of us legging it around the hospital, through walls and falling from ceilings. We still had time for a brief flirt over bananas and the sonic devices we used.

I had a Sonic Blaster which came from the fifty first century and was one of the weapon choices for all fifty first century adventurers like myself. My gun was made in the weapons factories of Villengard. The Doctor went there once and hinted that he might have been the one who blew up the facility – one of the main reactors went critical and vaporized the lot - to make way for a banana grove.

What is it with The Doctor and his bananas eh? He even played a trick on me by switching the blaster for a banana – cheeky big ears!

Rose called it a squareness gun, but my sleek, futuristic weapon was much more then that. It could blast holes through walls, but also repair any damage by reversing the process. It could function as a sonic cannon and a triple-enfolded sonic disrupter. I would say the only drawback was that its battery life was so lame and it died on me under attack from the gas mask zombies. I would have sent for a new one, but a certain someone destroyed the factories. That certain someone only had a sonic screwdriver! Apparently he was bored and had a lot of shelves to put up!

Well no way out of the hospital, stuck in what was a staff storage room barricaded of by a door. The wall couldn't stop the empty children, what a door could do against them was nobodies business - very limited, with a seven story drop outside! With no profit and listening to The Doctor whine about bananas, the only way out for me was to use the one passenger emergency teleport I had. So I did! Don't think I'm the bad guy here, I couldn't take The Doctor and Rose because the teleport was security-keyed to my molecular structure…

Ooh I make that sound dirty!

…But I could have fled, left the whole zombie thing behind me, but I didn't. I went back to my ship and left The Doctor and Rose to talk about dancing, which didn't look like either. I worked like hell in those ten minutes! I had to take the nav-com offline to override the teleport security to bring them both aboard and they didn't even notice they got teleported. How sweet?

Eventually when the nav-com came back online I took The Doctor and Rose to the crash site, where the Chula ambulance was stationed. Obviously it was still being guarded and Algy was on duty, so it much have been important. Rose wanted to distract him, but I ensured her that he wasn't her type and I would distract him and told them both not to wait up. Now, I know what you are thinking but don't, I haven't got time because soon after poor Algy turned into on of those zombies. I can say I preferred him better without the gas mask stuck to his face – but lots of things you can do with a gas mask, keep that in mind! Right know I have a pearly white smile at the thought of Rose's face when she realised just how flexible at _dancing_ I truly am.

These gas mask**,** empty children, zombies, whatever you call them, seemed to have a telepathic link between each other. The could connect with each other somehow, I tell you, when one got restless, all of them got restless, two when The Doctor sent them back to their rooms, all of them went to their rooms and thirdly Nancy had got caught trying to investigate the Chula ambulance and was took to a securer private and restricted area where she was held, by a guard who was slowly turning into a zombie. Therefore to keep the empty child at bay she sang to him and that affected Algy and the rest too, giving us enough time to save her... (Algy handcuffed her to the table, now I wonder where he got that from!?) …and for me to show The Doctor the space junk and prove to him that I had nothing to do with the strange happening.

But it didn't go to plan, the keypad on the Chula vehicle blew up and activated the emergency protocols and the ship thought it was under attack and railed in the troops. Every last and single gas mask child started to head down to the crash site. I managed to get the ambulance open and then The Doctor laid a bomb on me! Mentally and physically. Told me there was enough nanogenes to rebuild an entire species inside that thing and with the template of that child – Jamie, they would never stop until everyone looked like those gas mask zombies. The battlefield ambulance was getting the mask people ready for the frontline by equip and programming them and that's why Jamie was so strong. He was the first and by this time he was already a fully equipped Chula warrior – those zombies surrounded us, waiting for their command - the child. All that weapons tech in the hands of a hysterical four year old, scared and looking for his mummy, he must have been terrified.

I tell you, I felt like dropping a bomb myself and if that's not enough the two hours were nearly up so the sky began to rain them too. Nav-Com back online, one way teleport back to my ship, another chance I could have fleed but didn't. It would take too long to override the protocols so I had to come up with another plan with only seconds to spare. I, being the good guy at heart, realized my mistake and cached the bomb in the tracker beam, which was already programmed to detonate. History did say there was an explosion on the crash site and The Doctor nor me messed with that, Mr Spock programmed the ambulance to explode the moment the crash site was safe. I said goodbye to The Doctor and Rose and went to get rid of the bomb safely with no hope getting out alive myself.

While I was gone, the nanogenes – clever little things – recognized the real DNA from Nancy, therefore coming to the conclusion that they where incorrect and reversing the process. Everyone lived that day, while I was practically begging my ship in the deep of space to keep me alive. Three minutes before the bomb went KABOOM with no way of an escape. The one thing the ship didn't have and a major flaw was no escape pop onboard– I think I will make a complaint to the Chula Laws and Enforcements about that – I could get compensation! Two minutes to spare with one hundred percent probability of termination a Emergency Protocol 417 was called for. A Martini! I loved that ship! It wasn't the first alcohol had got my out of dying. When I was sentenced to death, not long before I too the Chula warship, I order four hyper-vodkas for breakfast. Bit of a blur after that – I woke up in bed with both my executioners – lovely couple, they stayed in touch for a while! Can't say that about most executioners.

Let's face it, if my time was up– I wouldn't be writing this now would I? When I look back to that moment and before, I was scared of death, scared of dying, not knowing what was on the other side, which seems pretty ironic now I can't die, I'll talk about that a little later. I've always had an uncanny way of cheating death even back then, maybe it was my fate. Who knows?

The Doctor saves my life and the first time I stepped into the TARDIS I was in complete awe. I know everyone says it, but believe me; it's much bigger on the inside! Moonlight Serenade was playing and The Doctor was finding it hard to dance, then all of a sudden out of nowhere In The Mood started playing and he went from having two left feet to showing his moves.

And he moved!


End file.
